


The Adventure of the Dying of Happiness Detective

by Iwantthatcoat



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Always be Batman, Crack, Gratuitous references to Morrisey Wednesday Adams and David Bowie's 'Quicksand', Insulting Henry Pym and Contrarians, M/M, no really you should be Batman or Magneto, references to Adventure of the Dying Detective, unless you can be Reed Richards
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-13
Updated: 2014-04-18
Packaged: 2018-01-19 07:13:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 1,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1460491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iwantthatcoat/pseuds/Iwantthatcoat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This was a prompt from bbckinkmeme where Sherlock was very depressed about wining  the lottery. Looking for the original wording to cut and paste, but that's a basic summary for now. I did a crack version and a serious angst version. Here is the crack, because I think my stories could use some more crack lately.<br/>Aha... The original prompt: "Sherlock develops a rare medical condition that causes him to become lethargic and depressed whenever good things happen to him. After Sherlock wins the lottery, John has trouble consoling him. Hurt/Comfort."</p><p> </p><p>  <i>You touched the box, didn't you, Sherlock?"</i><br/>"I touched the box, John."<br/>"Who was the box from, Sherlock?"<br/>"Culverton Smith"<br/>"Culverton Smith, aka The Poisoned-Box Murderer?"<br/>"Yes."<br/>"You probably shouldn't have touched the box, Sherlock."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It wasn't as if he didn't have a certain predisposition to it. He was always finding pleasure in the morbid, the disturbing, long before he found the small black and white ivory box with a sliding lid. That he should eventually find morbidness in pleasure as well wasn't that far a stretch. The box had just... helped things along a bit.


	2. Chapter 2

Mycroft was ready to slam his head into the wall... though slamming his brother's head into it seemed infinitely more appealing. Maybe a double decker bus *really would* crash into his brother and the singer both, and he wouldn't have to be subjected to the endless stream of maudlin music. Poetic justice. "Oh, Sweetness, Sweetness, I was only joking...", only maybe _I'm_ not, he muttered, as he considered what it would take to procure backstage passes for Sherlock, a bus schedule, and a rubber squash ball to place under the brake pedal.

When the disc finally ceased, glad for the silence, a small part (admittedly, a very small part) of Mycroft was concerned if this morbid fascination was a cause or an effect of some form of depression. He decided to walk past Sherlock's room on his way down to the kitchen for some leftover cake, and maybe he'd check in on him on the way? Looking every bit the sullen teen, Sherlock had strewn his gangly frame across the bed, rereading _The Vampire Lestat_. He headed downstairs. That explained the break in the music... but it wouldn't be for long, because that book would remind him of Bowie and then..."Don't believe in yourself... Don't deceive with belief... Knowledge comes with death's release. Oh oh oh oh...." warbled its way to the kitchen right on cue. Oh, how pleasant. Returning to his room, Mycroft grabbed his headphones from the top of the bookshelf and turned up Ace of Base extra loud. This sort of thing seemed to fill a perverse need in his brother's psyche. It made him happy, just like mindless pop did for _him_ and he wondered if there was something wrong with them.


	3. Chapter 3

Victor tried to take it in good humour, living with this version of Wednesday Adams, (only taller, better dressed and with nicer hair) who was constantly bringing in dead and dying things. Once Victor had nicked a skull from the lab over Break on a dare and gave it to the git, and he had almost cried out of sheer joy. He could swear his roommate had started talking to the thing at night. He wanted to go to bed, he had an exam in the morning, but he stayed up a bit longer just to be sure he and the skull weren't planning to murder him in his sleep. You can never be too sure with Sherlock Holmes.


	4. Chapter 4

Sally accused him, yet again, of getting off on crime scenes. How patently absurd. Death, exhausting your place in the world of the living and transitioning into something else entirely new, now that wasn't arousing... that was legitimately fascinating. It hadn't taken him long to realise that through whatever strange mechanism of fate, misalignment of receptors, odd twist of a double helix, Sherlock loved the things that made others disgusted, sad, terrified, even. But get off on it? Nah. Maybe it had potential, though.


	5. Chapter 5

John's fingers were around his throat, cutting off air, when he decided, sure, yeah, this is pretty damn hot, and it *does* have potential, even if he is just trying to kill me for completely unerotic reasons. He felt so much more alive as his body was on the edge of starting to shut down, and he wondered if this was the appeal. To feel relieved from the burden of thought. Or death as counterpoint to life, throwing it into clearer focus. He'd have to philosophise later, when his flatmate wasn't trying to choke him for the perfectly legitimate observations he had posted on his blog. He made a mental note to antagonise John more in the future; this was worth exploring.


	6. Chapter 6

On the table lay an intricately decorated box and a calling card from Culverton Smith with "Do not touch, Mr. Sherlock Holmes" scrawled on it. Sherlock smiled and nodded in agreement. Then he noticed there was, in fact, a comma in the sentence- and frowned.

He deduced Smith had stopped by. 

Sherlock had been entirely too busy looking for detached body parts around town and had missed the scheduled appointment. Actually, he hadn't really expected Smith to show up. Usually criminals tended to avoid police and detectives, but apparently the text he had sent which said "Come to 221B Baker Street alone so I can arrest you" worked like a charm. It was a very convincing font. 

Mrs Hudson had led Smith into the sitting room where, apparently, he had wandered around for awhile, disorganised Sherlock's sock index, replaced his cocaine with powdered sugar, messed with his toothbrush, checked inside his medicine cabinet, helped himself to a snack, drank the last of the milk and put the empty carton back in the fridge, and left. Maybe he should consider getting a lock for the door. 

The box sat unassumingly on the table. Did it contain the last piece of the puzzle which would finally incriminate Smith? If he didn't open it, he would never know. Was the note a double bluff, or a triple bluff, or a quadruple bluff, or Blind Man's Bluff, or Bluff, a town and seaport in the Southland region on the southern coast of the South Island of New Zealand (the southern-most town in New Zealand, excluding Oban, and, despite Slope Point being further to the south, colloquially used to refer to the southern extremity of the country, particularly in the phrase "from Cape Reinga to The Bluff") or not a bluff at all? He decided to go with his instincts and open the damn thing. As he opened it, a sharp, pointy spring pierced his skin. Fuck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: description of Bluff is from Wikipedia. Mention of convincing font is from Phineas and Ferb


	7. Chapter 7

John Watson knew something was wrong the second he came through the lockless door. 

"I brought you some milk!" he called from the stairs. "And the biscuits you like! And some poison!" he continued, as he came into the room and saw Sherlock lying on the couch, sulking. "And an external drive for your mind palace to increase storage space!" Still no response. Hmmm. Things that would normally make the taller, younger, dark-haired, lanky, emerald-eyed detective happy. Instead he just heard a groan. And it wasn't the sexy kind. 

"That's horrible, John."

"Did you just say...?" This required further testing. "Sherlock, I think Lestrade is coming over with a triple homicide."

"Tell him to go away!"

"The victims were found in a locked room..."

"Not interested!"

"The victims were Anderson, Donovan and Sebastian!"

"Don't care."

"Mycroft is currently under arrest, and they put him in one of those ridiculous orange jumpsuits. I have pictures. He looks a bit like a kumquat."

Sherlock just rolled over into the sofa.

John was beginning to suspect something was wrong.

He examined Sherlock. Very, very thoroughly. By the time he was finished, he seemed sadder than ever. John went to his laptop and began to search for possible conditions which would explain his sudden depressive state, besides sudden depression.


	8. Chapter 8

The next day was no better.

"It's a winning ticket, John." Sherlock looked ridiculously sad.

"You just won the fucking lottery, Sherlock. How on earth can you turn this into a tragedy?"

"Now I shall have to make all sorts of legal and financial arrangements. I will be in the bloody papers. People will interview me and I will not be taken seriously when I continue to do The Work. Or even the work." He somehow managed to communicate the change in capitalisation effectively. "Or work," he continued. "Or the." He threw the ticket down in disgust.

John grabbed it off the floor.

"Sherlock, you do realize this is not a bad thing, right? And why did you even buy a ticket if you didn't want to win?"

Sherlock ignored the question.

"I will become lackadaisical now. Lestrade will think I don't need to work and will not offer me new cases. My private clients will assume I'm too busy yachting or something."

"Well, you could just... be like Batman."

"What?"

"Be like Batman, Sherlock. Bruce Wayne is hella rich, and he doesn't give up on crime fighting. He buys fancy stuff and keeps at it."

"No one knows who Batman is, John. It's a little too late to establish a secret identity."

"Sherlock Holmes would have to die then. Surely you could work something out. Fake your death. You could hire an actor to be your arch nemesis and then he could lure you up into the rooftop somewhere and pretend to kill you and then pretend to kill himself and then you would both be dead. Not dead dead though. Just, you know, dead."

"But I don't want to be Batman!"

"Why the hell not?"

"Batman was an inventor, not a scientist. I want to be Reed Richards."

"Batman was too a scientist! You want to be a scientist...go be Henry Fucking Pym, you goddamn Contrarian!" John was too mad to even make tea. "Fine. Fine. Fine, fine, fine be Reed Richards!" At least stretchy stuff could come in handy with the sex, John thought.

"Or maybe Dr Doom." Sherlock added.

"What's wrong with Reed Richards? I like Reed Richards." Damn! If he only had agreed to Reed Richards right from the start. Now he would be stuck with a metal mask over those cheekbones, and all the porn about them like "The doctor threw him to the floor and fucked him without mercy, until he cried out and came in thick ropes" would be entirely too confusing with more than one doctor taking part in said fucking. Who was the fucker and who was the fuckee? Actually, that was surprisingly easy... Sherlock would always be a fucker.


	9. Chapter 9

"So are you all backwards on this whole happy/sad thing then?"

"It appears so."

"Been out of the country recently?"

"No."

"Eaten any unusual foods?"

"No."

"Opened any suspicious packages?"

"N...yes...maaaaaybe."

"I thought so. I found a note on the desk that said not to touch you. Then I reread it and saw the comma. You touched the box, didn't you, Sherlock?"

"I touched the box, John."

"Who was the box from, Sherlock?"

"Culverton Smith"

"Culverton Smith, aka The Poisoned-Box Murderer?"

"Yes."

"You probably shouldn't have touched the box, Sherlock." John sat down next to Sherlock on the sofa. His flatmate's legs took up entirely too much sofa, so he sat down on top of them. "Well, judging by your symptoms, I would say you have Eeyoritis. Possibly Pollyanistic Eeyoritis. Just kidding, Sherlock. I have no idea what it's called, but you are making good things bad. And possibly making bad things good. I don't think you'll die though, because you've likely had previous exposure to this, judging by your past behaviour patterns, so it won't be as severe a case. Sort of an acquired immunity. This would be a particularly good time to have some very rough sex."

"Because I will interpret pain as pleasure."

"No, mostly because you got me thinking about Mr Fantastic and Batman. Just so we are clear, you don't mix up yes and no, right? Consent-wise?"

"Oh, will you just get on with it already?"

"Let's just use a safe word anyway. So I don't misinterpret your wails. Wails can go either way. So... what will you whisper in my ear?

"Norbury."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As usual...always looking for opinions, whatever they might be.  
> I do have a serious angsty take on this prompt as well ( I wrote it in two parts), so if anyone is interested in that just let me know and I will post it.


End file.
